Yesterday, I kissed a giraffe

July 23, 2008 at 4:25 pm , by Jenel Looney

What do these three pictures have in common?

Give up? These pictures were all taken at the Texas Disposal Systems (TDS) landfill/exotic game ranch. I’ve been exposed to a lot of slashes in my life. Bar-slash-restaurant. Gas station-slash-convenience store. Actress-slash-model. But when I heard that the Georgetown Chamber was presenting members with the opportunity to tour a landfill-slash-exotic game ranch, I couldn’t resist. That has got to be the oddest slash out there.
Turns out, it might just be the coolest slash, too. Bob and Jim Gregory, brothers who founded TDS in 1977, opened the state’s first integrated recycling, composting, and landfilling facility in 1991. Their goal is to recycle or reuse about 90% of the waste that comes into their facility, leaving just 10% to be buried. Their composting operations are especially impressive. They separate out anything that can be composted, such as untreated wood. They get produce from Whole Foods and other local stores and add all that natural material to the piles. The composting piles need lots of liquid. One great liquid is the water used to wash out vats at a milk factory. That fat-filled water waste had been causing problems with the Austin sewage system, so the city brought milk company executives to TDS to see if anything could be done. The solution was win-win-win. The city of Austin no longer had to deal with the sewer problems, TDS got some excellent liquid for their compost piles, and the milk company ended up paying about 50% less for disposal than they had been. TDS bought Garden-Ville to serve as a retail outlet for the rich, organic compost and soil mixtures they create. The smallest Garden-Ville branch is right here in Georgetown, at 250 W.L. Walden Road.
TDS honors its commitment to the environment in numerous creative ways. For example, they have a couple of repairmen on staff who try to return broken appliances and gadgets to working condition. If they’re able to do so, TDS sells these items back to the public in their resale center. Some people buy the items for pennies on the dollar at the TDS resale center and then resell them at flea markets for a profit. Whatever the public buys stays out of the landfill, at least for the time being. TDS is also a big player in Austin’s Green Building program, in which builders earn credits for taking environmentally sound steps during the building process. Some disposable building items, such as drywall, are an effective addition to the compost piles, and rebar and other scrap metal can be recycled.
How did exotic game enter the picture? The Gregorys wanted to be good neighbors. They wanted to put a buffer zone between the landfill and the surrounding homes. They approached the neighbors with the idea of building a golf course, but the neighbors didn’t want their property values to skyrocket. So the Gregorys decided to go for an ag exemption in the buffer zone and somewhere along the way, they got a couple of zebras. Now they have 1300-1500 animals running around free, including (among others), antelope, gazelles, emus, and of course, the giraffe that I kissed. On the mouth. A four-year-old friend was very excited when his father said I would kiss a giraffe, so I couldn’t disappoint him. And yes, I do have a picture, but pictures have a way of hovering on the internet forever, and I don’t want to be an eighty-year-old haunted by a picture of myself in a compromising position. If you email me privately at Jenel@HometownGeorgetown.com, I will share the photos with you.